The sands of time
(more pictures below)
Now that I’ve moved into the study, the next priority is for David and I to each sort through paperwork. Piles of paper accumulated during our year in Crawfordsburn and our year here (phone contract, utility bills, bank statements, health system info, Queen’s info, etc etc). My goal is to skinny it down and integrate it with the filing system we had in Pennsylvania, which also needs to be radically thinned out.
As my part of this, I spent today sifting through the detritus of my life: letters to the editor about newspaper articles I wrote in the 1980s; paystubs; annual reviews; a history of the McGoverns in Northern Ireland and Wilmington (my father’s family); letters of recommendation from my high school headmaster and my favourite college professor; cards and letters from friends and former lovers. I have two warring instincts: pitch all this useless stuff VS hold onto stuff that may not be of interest now but could be in my 80s. I have this feeling that once I’m older, I’ll be more interested than I am now in my younger self and the journey I’ve taken. Maybe the underlying assumption is you get bored when you’re older so the threshold of what is interesting is lower?
I pitched a mountain of stuff from Right Associates, a Kansas City outplacement firm where I spent a month job searching before getting the job at Vanguard. Some of it was useful to my current job search (questions to ask at an interview) but most of it was tedious know-thyself exercises and job search strategies (for executive positions I didn’t want). The interesting thing is that what I wanted when I was at Right Associates in 1998 is what I’m looking for right now: I job where I can use my skills in a way that advances a more just world. When I went to Vanguard, I postponed that dream for 15 years, while continuing my education in status quo capitalism. Now I want to be part of shifting the status quo to a sustainable system.
Which brought me to a responsible investing conference in Edinburgh. Here’s the national gallery:
And some buy in a skirt:
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